Best Laid Plans
by Darklady
Summary: Crime does not pay. Especially not in Potions class.


Best Laid Plans by Darklady  
  
Disclaimer: The list of folks with ownership in Harry Potter is long indeed - but none of them are me. More's the pity.  
  
Slash?: Nope. Sorry.  
  
Rated: G *sigh* But it's still evil.  
  
Dedicated to: Lexin - for obvious reasons. I confess that I rather miss Mr. Riddle's work. The 'reviews' were so... warm. Almost incendiary, in fact. *giggle*  
  
Also a bow to: Diana Williams, who invented Professor Digitalia. With thanks for some fabulous visuals, as well as an extremely clever name.  
  
Archive: Ask  
  
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"Come on!" Draco Malfoy looked impatiently back at his friend. "I don't see why you wanted to buy that dirty old book bag anyway." Not to mention that waiting while Goyle had dug though his pockets for the needed Knuts had made them both late for ice cream.  
  
"It's not the case." Goyle puffed slightly as he pushed himself up the cobbled street. "It's what's inside." Fumbling under the dusty leather flap, he pulled out a cracked roll of wrinkled parchment.  
  
Draco slowed just enough to grab the bundle. Faded ink filled the sheet, in the sort of jagged scrawl that made it hard to read. The top title section of the scroll was missing, but.... "Old homework?" He raised an eyebrow.  
  
Goyle grinned. "Very old homework."  
  
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"I'm not so sure this is a good idea." Vincent Crabbe paced heavily around the Malfoy library. They were supposed to be finishing their summer homework - as witness the scattered stacks of books and notes - but at the moment only Goyle was actually writing.  
  
"Not good - brilliant." Goyle didn't bother looking up. "This thing is already worth an A minus, and with all the teachers notes?" He gave the old scroll another crank before turning back to his copying. "I'll just add another line or two when I rewrite those bits, stick in a few footnotes from this years Potion's book..." He paused, lips moving as he worked out one excessively faded word. "Had to do up a new intro though, which was a bit tough."  
  
Draco nodded silently. They had all *heard* how tough it was. At length. Worse for the sad fact that the heavyset Slytherin hadn't bothered to study at all over the summer, and so it had taken him a full day even to decipher what the 'borrowed' paper was about. If it hadn't been for the need to turn in *some* paper? Well - Goyle might not have been Hogwart's smartest student - but no one was fool enough to piss off *Snape*.  
  
Crabbe hesitated. "What if he... catches on?"  
  
"How could he? I'm rewriting it all in my own handwriting." Goyle paused to dip his pen. "Plus this way I know what it says, if anyone asks." Because they all knew A minus papers were a little out of Goyle's usual range - even if he had properly worked all summer on the task.  
  
"I don't know..." Draco slid his fingers over his own unfinished scroll. " Professor Snape has a memory like..."  
  
No need to finished the sentence. They all shivered.  
  
"May...be, but..." Goyle went back to his work. "The note on the bottom says 'see me - Professor Digitalia'. She was the teacher back when *Snape* was a kid. Even he couldn't know every paper every kid did way back then."  
  
"No. I guess not."  
  
"Slick, eh?" Goyle finished his scroll with a flourish. "And folks wonder why I'm a Slytherin!"  
  
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"An A, Mr. Malfoy. Although I had expected better." Severus Snape strode though his classroom, passing back the summer assignments.  
  
"A minus, Miss Granger." Two thick scrolls hit her desk. "Insufficient bibliography. I do not recognize Muggle periodicals."  
  
"B minus Mr. Weasley. Neither do I recognize your brothers as experimental authorities - whatever successes they may *claim* for their ill conceived divisements. However, I suppose one must give credit for... creativity."  
  
"And now we come to Mr. Goyle." Snape paused dramatically. "With a most impressive summer project. Clearly written, well conceived, inarguably logical. Save for a slightly surprising weakness in the introduction, and a few poorly considered annotations." With a conductor's grace, Snape held out the rolled paper. "I am forced to confess that this is the finest fifth year paper I have seen in years. Indeed, it could have been little better if ... The bobbing paper had much the effect on its author as a feather fly would on a trout. "I wrote it myself. Which I did. "  
  
It would be false to say the students gasped. None of them would have dared to make that much noise.  
  
"The mandatory twenty points from Slytherin, Mr. Goyle." The Professor's blood-black glare made it very clear that Goyle *would* find that deduction even more painful then Snape had. And that Snape found the loss of Slytherin points painful indeed.   
  
"Plus - as you have such a familiarity with my handwriting?" Snape leaned closer - the Shadow of Doom. "Detentions until you have recopied all of my *other* works." Snape smiled at the shivering boy. Make that - he showed his teeth. Up curved lips on Snape did not constitute anything warm. "You should be finished by... Christmas."  
  
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KKR 2003 


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